Xbox 360 being used to detect heart defects

by Griffin McElroy on Sep 25th 2009 4:00AM

We've suffered our fair share of broken hearts at the hands of the Red Ring of Death -- now, the Xbox 360 is being used to mend our ailing blood-pumpers. A computer scientist at the University of Warwick in England recently did some sweet console modification to allow his 360 to calculate heart rhythms using a complex algorithm. Microsoft's console is capable of performing these calculations five times faster (and 10 times cheaper) than a lab computer, and has the added benefit of letting its users play Madden in between bursts of scientific study.

To sum up, the 360 is now being used to cure heart disease, and the PS3 is being used to cure cancer. Ball's in your court, Nintendo.

Source

Tags: health, heart, heart-disease, medical, microsoft, science, university-of-warwick, xbox-360

Reader Comments (58)

Low blow, Joystiq!

Nintendo is doing it's fair share of the work! It's using it's raw processing power combating millions of bored pre-teens and the elderly.

Sorry I mis-read the title. I thought it said "HEAT defects". And the 360 was actually the subject of the research.....

It's also good for religion as well, I say a little prayer before turning it...

If only this could work the other way around, microsoft would hire heart affected ppl as some kind of control quality team. Haha dreams...

The X360 is being used to treat heart disease... the PS3 is being used to cure cancer...

Time for the Wii to dominate the next thing better... RAISE THE DEAD!

Ahh! Zombies!!! Get yo shotguns out!

Here is an explanation of what the paper actually says:

http://igoro.com/archive/human-heart-is-a-turing-machine-research-on-xbox-360-shows-wait-what/

It is about proving Turing-completeness, not detecting heart defects. And the XBox part seems to be mostly thrown in to attract attention.

Interesting... Check out http://www.bodyviz.com as well. They are using an x-box controller as part of a system that creates 3D MRI imaging to help surgeions.